Tower Blocks excite local Tories

This is the view from the top of Sudbury House - a view that will be obliterated by the twice-as-high towers planned for the Ram Brewery in the right foreground. All Saints Church in Wandsworth High Street is in the bottom left, and in the top left you can make out the terracotta of Putney Wharf Tower.


In the latest sign that Putney and Wandsworth Conservatives are hand-in-glove with developers, one of the Tory Councillors for the area that includes the Ram Brewery site, Stuart Thom, testified at the Public Inquiry into the 42-storey towers that they could be "the most exciting thing since the Surrey Iron Railway? came to the borough.

He just doesn't get it, does he?

The prospect of the tallest building in the Putney constituency - Sudbury House that towers above the Southside shopping centre - being dwarfed by two new towers almost twice as high is not "exciting".

The prospect of the most congested part of the borough attracting thousands more car journeys and thousands more people into the middle of choc-a-bloc Wandsworth is not "exciting".

The prospect of the precedent these towers - if approved - will set for the developers queueing up to submit their skyscraper plans right through Putney is not "exciting".

The prospect of not a single one of the new homes being proposed being affordable to ordinary Wandsworth people when homelessness and waiting lists are on the rise is not "exciting".

It's why Labour councillors and the Labour MP for the Ram Brewery site Martin Linton have joined the Battersea Society, the Putney Society and the Wandsworth Society, in testifying against this grotesque overdevelopment.



Every time a local Conservative opens their mouth about these nightmare skyscraper developments they emphasise the two big criticisms I have of Putney Conservatives: they lack judgement to make the right call on defending the character of our area; and they lack the leadership to stand up both to their own council bosses and the developers who are determined to transform our patch into a blighted, high-rise hell-hole.

We need to clean house in May and replace these Conservatives with Labour councillors who'll work with me to protect Putney. That's the only way to protect Putney from councillors who seem ignorant of what our area needs.

Westminster Hall debate on tall buildings and planning policy

Battersea's Labour MP Martin Linton initiated a Westminster Hall debate yesterday on planning for tall buildings. Battersea is as badly under threat from overdevelopment plans as Putney is: the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth, Clapham Junction and Battersea Power Station are all in Martin's patch.

Westminster Hall debates are a chance for MPs to flag up issues that can't be fitted into formal House of Commons time, but a Minister is obliged to attend, to take note and to respond in exactly the same way as they are with the Commons.

You can watch Martin's Westminster Hall debate by clicking here.

Unfortunately the powers that be don't split the various debates that happen into their own streams, so you need to scroll about 1 hour 45 minutes in to get to Martin's discussion. It's about 25 minutes in total. Even if you can't watch the whole debate, do take a few minutes to listen to Martin's speech given the local relevance.

You can also read here an article Martin wrote for the e-politix website about this debate.

BREAKING NEWS: TILEMAN PLANS WITHDRAWN

Residents: 3 - Overdevelopers: 0

The developer of the controversial and unpopular Tileman House site has withdrawn his planning application for the site.

This is great news - provided that the developers have withdrawn it because they have heard the local voices about their plans. But if they are hoping the objectors will fade away or be worn down by drawing out this application they won't succeed.

So that's:

• Putney Place - plans rejected
• Ram Brewery - plans called in by our Labour Government
• Tileman House - plans withdrawn

Let those who believe local action doesn't make a difference see that it can.

Ram Brewery towers "called in"

Following the news earlier this week that Labour Communities Secretary Hazel Blears had "called in" - the technical term for reviewing the decision on the Ealing Broadway tower plan; she has done the same for the Ram Brewery towers.

You can read more here.

In another sign of how way out of step with Putney the Conservatives have got on this, Tory Council Leader Edward Lister is quoted as attacking the Government's decision saying: "It?s unbelievable that in the depths of a recession we have a minister that would put at risk £1bn of investment in the town centre."

Well, actually Councillor, it's unbelievable that you have railroaded this absurd overdevelopment plan that will clog the remainder of road capacity in central Wandsworth. It's unbelievable that you have forced through plans that will overwhelm local services and transport provision. And it's unbelievable that you think it's a good idea to blight our borough with skyscrapers that will make the Arndale estate towers look miniscule and be visible for miles and miles around.

It's important not to get too carried away here: the independent Government inspector could rule after his review that the plans should proceed. But it is clearly significant that Labour Ministers have stepped in where Tory Mayor Boris Johnson has failed to and looks to be of the view that "out of town" skyscrapers are inappropriate.

I'm delighted at Hazel Blears' decision. It shows beyond doubt that the choice at the next election will be between Tory towers and Labour defending our area from overdevelopment.

Labour steps in to halt latest Tory tower

A couple of weeks ago I reported on the Evening Standard's devastating expose of Boris Johnson's U-turn over tower blocks. The Standard noted how, despite the Tory pledge in last year's London Elections not to allow any more high-rise applications, Boris has subsequently broken that pledge over and over again.

One of those broken promises concerned a 23-storey tower planned for Ealing Broadway, an area - like Putney - without any similar high rise buildings. Today, the Standard is reporting that the Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, has "called-in" the Ealing skyscraper which Boris approved. All I can say is: thank goodness London's Mayor isn't the last resort on issues like this.

It's worth noting that at 23 storeys, the Ealing tower is just about HALF the size of one of the the Ram Brewery towers the Conservatives here forced through in December.

White elephants

Hardwick's Square was among the first of the recent massive housing developments the Conservatives approved for our area - it's the site just behind Wandsworth High Street, and it's far from complete.

Today the Wandsworth Guardian is reporting the folly of the Conservatives' housing strategy: the stack-em-up, pile-em-high mentality that is not only blighting our area with high rise blocks but is creating hundreds of empty private homes when the area is in desperate need of affordable housing to rent.

And it's not just the Guardian realising this problem. Some of the most senior council officers are admitting how wrong the Conservatives have got it. In an email to my campaign on Monday, one of them - who to spare embarrassment I won't name - wrote:

"Because of the housing/mortgage situation and recession, these are not filling as rapidly as predicted...I suspect this will now plateau out somewhat."

That being the case, why on earth are the Conservatives ramming through hundreds and hundreds more homes: 500 on the brewery in Wandsworth town; 150 in the new "Argento Tower" block beside the Arndale shopping centre; another 500 in Clapham Junction; 100+ at Tileman House and goodness knows how many more they want to cram into the remainder of the Riverside Quarter site behind Wandsworth Park.

The Conservatives are completely out of control. I can only stop them with your votes.

The Tory planning muddle

This week, the leader of Wandsworth Council chose the distinctly unfestive message of planning as his last contribution to the SW15 website.

In a post he should have titled "The Nightmare Before Christmas" he welcomed the lack of planning restrictions that enabled him and his colleagues - on a whipped vote in full council - to push through the massive skyscrapers proposed for the Ram Brewery in central Wandsworth. He went on to write:

"In a recession this pragmatic approach is even more critical. We support the Mayor's move away from rigid housing targets."

Anyone with half an ounce of foresight might have thought that in a global economic downturn, with the potential for thousands of homes being repossessed in the coming year we need to boost the amount of affordable housing for rent in Putney. The Conservatives clearly lack even that half ounce. Let's be clear: the Conservative opposition to affordable housing has nothing to do with pragmatism or making sure our patch weathers the recession: it's opposition to the sort of people they believe live in affordable housing.

And that narrow-minded, short-termism is damaging the quality of life of local people: both those who might hope to be housed in the affordable homes Cllr Lister has negotiated away, or the rest of us who will soon live in an area dominated by tower blocks and skyscrapers.

This is Conservatism at its worst. It starts with failure to plan properly. This manifests itself in the approval of massively inappropriate overdevelopment which the Putney Society, Wandsworth Society and Battersea Society have all spoken out against. It develops into the abandonment of the council's social responsibility to house those not able to get or remain on the housing ladder. And it ends with a borough transformed beyond repair but local Conservatives smug in the knowledge that some of their pet projects have been paid for by the developers as the price for getting their overdevelopment applications approved.

This is not local leadership. It's the abbrogation of leadership. It's up to you decide whether you are content to allow your current representatives to wreck Wandsworth or, instead, elect me as MP to ensure far stronger, clear leadership.

Tories push another Putney tower

Last week councillors met to decide the Ram Brewery planning application in central Wandsworth.
Alongside the main application (which to recap is for twin towers of 32 and 42 storeys among other buildings on the brewery and adjoining sites) was an additional application to redevelop a site opposite King George's Park known as Cockpen House.

This plan (which unlike the brewery itself is in Putney constituency) would have built a 16-storey building above the park.

The real significance here is that, at present, there are high buildings - the three Arndale estate blocks in Neville Gill Close plus the new "Parkside" block - along just one side of King George's Park. This application would have opened up a new "front" for developers along another side, enclosing the park beneath these blocks as well as adding 200 new flats - 300-odd residents - plus all the associated traffic piled into Wandsworth's already gridlocked road network.

Most attention on this massive application, understandably, has focussed on the landmark skyscrapers on the Brewery itself, leaving the Cockpen House application almost unremarked on. And just look what the Council tries to do when no one is waging a campaign against over-development: the Tories recommend approving their tower blocks.



Labour councillors have "called in" all four planning applications to be debated by all sixty councillors at the full council meeting tonight which, given the importance of this application is only right. But there are 51 Conservatives and just 9 Labour councillors in Wandsworth, so don't expect much to change after tonight's important council meeting - except that if it doesn't, they'll have established a precedent that could make tower block-style overdevelopment elsewhere in Putney that much easier.

My Southfields survey

I grew up around Southfields - I lived just the other side of the Wandle; my first summer job was in the Arndale where my mum worked for over 30 years; I won my first school football medal in King George's Park.

Southfields will be one of the first parts of London to benefit directly from the 2012 Olympics. Plans are in the advanced design stage to add a passenger lift, ticket hall and generally upgrade the tube station ready for Olympic tennis at the All England Club. A fully accessible station will benefit Southfields far beyond 2012 and I know how long the area has waited for this work.

But there remain challenges. I'm really concerned about plans for massive overdevelopment in the Southfields ward. A new tower block above King George's Park is nearly finished. Skyscrapers of up to 42 storeys are planned for the Ram Brewery. Hardwick's Way and the 16-floor Cockpen House plan in Buckhold Road will add hundreds of people to the area. These plans threaten the area's character and set a precedent for future overdevelopment.

Southfields can be even better. Are there ways we can improve road safety throughout the grid? Find a way to prevent overdevelopment and the loss of garden space while enabling families to expand their homes? Crime is low, but where do you think improvements can be made?

Tell me what you think. My new Southfields survey is live - click here to tell me about your concerns and priorities for Southfields.

Don't forget about 16-storey Cockpen House!

I've written a lot about the hugely significant and damaging plans for Putney Place and Carlton Tower recently - and rightly so. But the biggest over-development plan, and the furthest advanced, is that for the Ram Brewery site in central Wandsworth.

Although I oppose this plan as wholeheartedly as I do the Putney Place and Carlton Tower tower blocks, because the Ram Brewery is not within our constituency I have left it to the local Labour MP: Battersea's Martin Linton, to make the running on this application.

That said, the plans for the brewery site will have a massive impact on Putney. Standing on Putney Bridge the four Arndale towers (plus the latest tower block imposed upon us by the Tory council - Parkside, currently under construction) are clearly visible, despite being almost two miles away. The two Ram Brewery towers will dwarf Sudbury, Albon, Edwyn and Knowles Houses - the Arndale towers.

But aside from the fact that we neighbour this site and it will have a huge impact on our local infrastructure and quality of environment there is, in fact, a legitimate constituency concern for us. Part of the Brewery site does fall within the constituency boundaries: the Cockpen House site at 20-30 Buckhold Road, right next to the Royal Military Police Building.

This specific part of Wandsworth town has already been subject to huge construction in recent years - I've already mentioned the Parkside block at the end of Neville Gill Close, but just behind Buckhold Road is Hardwick's Way which has become a huge housing development with another block on the edge of Buckhold Road nearing completion.

To add to the gross over-development of this area, the Council is currently considering plans for a 16-storey tower, a 10-storey block on Buckhold Road (where currently the buildings are no more than two storeys and are mainly small inter-war cottages) and what they call a five storey "element" to the rear.

To put a 16 storey block in context, the tallest block on Roehampton's Alton estate is eleven storeys high. And worryingly, even the artists' impressions of the buildings - pictures that are supposed to make us look more favourably on these plans - make me cringe in horror at the ugliness of the architecture.

The Council has produced a handy guide to the plans for both the Ram Brewery and the Cockpen House site which you can download here. Although the deadline for submissions in respect of these plans closed last month, it's still worthwhile to see just how seriously our community is under threat from these carbuncles.

Redevelopment in Putney

We're facing an increasing wave of plans to build huge tower blocks in our patch. Rising land prices and the general lack of space in London is prompting developers to build up rather than out.

A couple of years ago, the first of these applications, for the site at the top of East Hill above the Wandsworth Bridge roundabout, was rightly rejected by the Council; a slightly less tall block is now almost complete.

Today we have three "landmark" buildings proposed for the area:

• Putney Place, opposite East Putney tube in the triangle between the two railway viaducts plans for two tower blocks: one of 25 storeys and one of 19.
• On the corner of Carlton Drive and Upper Richmond Road a 20-storey building is being proposed to replace the Capsticks building - I wrote last year about loopholes in the council's planning rules that enable developers to leave office buildings derelict and then convert them into windfall residential blocks
• And in Wandsworth town on the Ram brewery site, another set of twin towers are being planned that, hard to believe, will actually dwarf the blocks on the Arndale Estate, which currently hold the record for the highest towers in the constituency

My views on these so-called "landmark" building are the subject of my latest Putney SW15 parliamentary report, which you can read here.